As more and more newspapers move into a free obituary policy that may only provide the name of the deceased and the funeral home serving them - I submit this tip to anyone who is trying to find an obituary. Most all funeral homes have a website now, if you can get the name of the firm handling the service - do a website search and see if you can come up with the funeral home's site. If it is local, your job is probably a little easier to search for as you may be more familiar with the funeral homes.

After searching, and finding, the proper funeral home - there should be an easy to find current list of obituaries. Now... with this some funeral homes will post what our industry calls an "incomplete obituary" - this has the name, age and town of residence of the deceased and simply says, "arrangements will be announced"... Keep in mind funeral homes gain the permission of the family as to when this will be released to local radio stations, newspapers and the website. Some families want it immediately - and some families because of different reasons (contacting out of town family members, family members in nursing homes that haven't been contacted, etc.) may not want an incomplete obituary posted. For Washburn & Dorsey's policy - once we get permission from the family - it is posted just as it was sent to local media - that means it isn't uncommon for an incomplete obituary to be posted at 11 pm at night or 3 am in the morning.

Some funeral homes (and not trying to be critical to them) will only post an obituary when it is totally confirmed and complete.

So this tip is just for the web savvy individuals - the handiest way to usually find the obituary is to rely on the serving funeral home's website.